Faithful

Luke 2:21-24

December 31, 2017 (Covenant Service) • Mount Pleasant UMC

When I was a kid, my grandparents lived in Colorado, and one of the great things about that was that every summer we would take a different route out to go see them. One summer, we spent a bit of time at the famous Yellowstone National Park, where one of the highlights was seeing the geyser, Old Faithful. Over a million eruptions have been recorded since the geyser was discovered in 1870, each one of them shooting between 3,700 and 8,400 gallons of boiling water high into the air. When it was first discovered, the geyser was used as a laundry. Soldiers would throw their dirty clothes into the crater, and when the geyser shot them out, they were, as one record of the time says, “thoroughly washed.” That is, if they were made of cotton or linen. If they were made of wool, the clothing came out in shreds. Today, “Old Faithful” is a tourist destination, though the time between eruptions has lengthened over the years. In 1939, the average time between eruptions was 66 1/2 minutes; today it is somewhere around 90 minutes. Still, “Old Faithful” has the name it has because, unlike other geysers in the area, its eruptions can be pretty accurately predicted.

The geyser is well named because it is, in many ways, the very picture of faithfulness, a quality that we’ve been looking at in ourselves during the Advent season as we’ve studied the life of Joseph. Before we rush headlong into a new year, though, I want us to take one more look at Joseph’s life, to try to sum up at least a little bit of what faithfulness looks like. Or, to put it in another way, what does it take to be counted among the “faithful” as Joseph was and is?

Joseph’s story doesn’t end at the manger. We do know he doesn’t seem to be around at the cross, or even during Jesus’ ministry, so somewhere in Jesus’ growing-up years, tradition tells us Joseph passed away. But we do get glimpses of Joseph in three stories from the Gospels, and though Joseph still doesn’t say anything, his actions speak loudly about what it means to be faithful. The first story is found in our Gospel passage for this morning, a passage which can be a bit confusing if we don’t first unravel the traditions that Joseph and Mary are keeping by going to the Temple (cf. Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 51). There are actually three separate traditions here in just a few short words; Luke has telescoped time for the sake of brevity (and because those reading his Gospel in the first century would have understood what he meant). The first event happens eight days after Jesus is born; that was the time when every good Hebrew baby was circumcised and marked as a member of the community. This ceremony was so important that even if the eighth day fell on a Sabbath, a day when nothing else (no work) was supposed to be done, they would still perform the circumcision (Barclay, The Gospel of Luke, pg. 24). It was also during this ceremony when the baby received his name. On this day, Joseph would finally be able to do what the angel had told him to do months before (cf. Matthew 1:21). In his Gospel, Matthew simply says Joseph “gave him the name Jesus” (Matthew 1:25).

Then, forty days after the birth (or thirty-two days after the circumcision), the young family once again reports to the Temple for two more rituals. The first is for Mary’s purification. After childbirth, a woman could go about normal household duties but she had to wait forty days if she had a boy and eighty days if she had a girl to be able to return to Temple or participate in any religious ceremony. To receive the purification, she would go to the Temple and offer the sacrifice prescribed in Leviticus 12, which was normally a lamb and a young pigeon. However, as that was a rather pricey sacrifice, if the family was poor, the law allowed them to offer instead two pigeons. Do you notice what Mary offers? She brings the offering of the poor, which reminds us that Jesus didn’t grow up in a palace or really a home of any sort of means. His was an ordinary home—actually a poor home. From childhood, Jesus knew the difficulties of a family trying to make ends meet (Barclay 24-25). The other offering that was made at this same time was for the redemption of the firstborn. In Exodus 13, the Hebrews were told that every firstborn male, whether human or animal, belonged to God, was sacred to God. And so parents of the firstborn had to “redeem” or “buy back” their firstborn, dedicating him to God by paying five shekels to the priests (Barclay 24). Again, for a poor family from a poor town, this could be a large amount of money. And yet, Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to the Temple again on the fortieth day after his birth and they follow the law laid down by Moses centuries before.

So what do we learn from this story about faithfulness? A couple of things, I believe. Joseph led his family in being faithful to how he knew to live out his belief in God. Up until the time Jesus came, faith in God meant waiting—waiting for God to fulfill his promises (Card 51). Waiting involved continuing to do what God asked them to do, being faithful to God’s law. In many ways, there is still that element of faith active in our lives. Even though God fulfilled his promises by sending Jesus, we are still waiting for the final fulfillment of God’s promise, which will take place when Jesus returns. In the Old Testament, being faithful meant circumcision and the redemption of the firstborn; in our context, we live that sort of faith out through baptism and confirmation. They’re not exactly the same thing, though Paul does equate circumcision with baptism in the sense that in both acts, the child becomes part of the community, but they are both acts of faith. We give our children and, sometimes, ourselves over to God to use as he sees fit. There is nothing magical in the acts of circumcision or baptism or confirmation; it’s all about God entering a covenant with us even before we’re able to acknowledge it. All of these acts are about God claiming the person as his own. None of these practices are about our own faith or anything we’ve done to earn God’s attention. They are all about God’s gracious invitation to us. They are outward signs of a covenant with God, a promise of faithfulness to the God who is always faithful.

Another way we see faithfulness in Joseph is in his choice to stay in Bethlehem for at least the forty days after Jesus’ birth (they actually probably stayed there much longer than that, but we’ll get to that in a moment). Mary’s family was back in Nazareth, as, most likely, was the work Joseph could get in Sepphoris. Some speculate he might have gotten work on the ongoing building project of the Temple in Jerusalem, but I wonder. Joseph, as we learned a few weeks ago, was a tekton, an artisan or a stonemason, but he was not an archtekton, a master builder. My guess would be that the only ones hired to work on the Temple would be the best of the best, the masters, and Joseph was not that. To stay in Bethlehem could have very well meant the loss of income to a family that is already financially challenged. It also probably meant living in a guest room of a family member, moving from the stable to a one-room space. Staying long enough to carry out the ancient rituals as prescribed by the law meant sacrificing income and privacy. For Joseph, being faithful to God required sacrifice, which leads me to ask: what is it you have had to sacrifice in order to remain or become more faithful to God? Faithfulness involves sacrifice.

The second story of post-Christmas Joseph comes to us in Matthew’s Gospel, and begins with the visit of the Magi. Now, while a lot of movies and most of our nativity scenes picture the wise men, or Magi, arriving just shortly after the shepherds, in reality, they came sometime within the first two years of Jesus’ life. Jesus is a toddler, Joseph and Mary are still in Bethlehem, and we’re told the Magi come to the “house” to see him, bringing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh (Matthew 2:11)—gifts that are not only symbolic but also would come in handy later. But it’s what happens next that concerns Joseph, because the arrival of the Magi has made the Roman-appointed King of the Jews, Herod, feel threatened. And when Herod felt threatened, he usually lashed out. The Magi have told him there’s a newborn king in Bethlehem, and so Herod decides he must destroy that “threat” to his power. Since he doesn’t know who it is, Herod decides to send his soldiers and kill all the baby boys two years old and younger (2:16). And while we usually picture a huge massacre, the reality is that Bethlehem in this time was a small village—maybe a few hundred people, not more than a thousand. Modern scholars estimate the soldiers may have killed thirty to forty children (Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 35; Hamilton, Faithful, pg. 127). So while the killing of any child is horrific, this wasn’t a large assault on the families of Bethlehem. It wasn’t large enough to be written about in any of the secular histories of the time, but then again, Herod killing people was so frequent that another assault on a small town probably didn’t seem worth mentioning. After that attack, though, Herod must have been pretty confident that he had gotten rid of this threat to his kingdom.

What he didn’t count on was God stepping in. In the middle of the night, God once again sends an angel to communicate with Joseph. The angel tells him to get up and take his new family to Egypt in order to escape the threat from Herod. Joseph is told to stay there indefinitely, until God calls him back, until Herod is gone (Matthew 2:13). Joseph doesn’t question; he’s learned by now to listen to angels in dreams! He gathers Mary and Jesus up and they begin the three hundred mile journey to Alexandria where there was, in the first century, a sizable Jewish population. They would have gone along the Mediterranean coast, across the Nile and then on to Alexandrea, also on the coast (Card, Matthew, 35). The gifts of the Magi are most likely what they used (or sold) to finance the trip, and even, perhaps, to sustain them financially while in Egypt. I had the opportunity to be in Egypt a little over five years ago, and in both Cairo and Alexandria, there are many churches and sites that claim a tradition of the family stopping and staying there for a time. In one place in particular, our Christian guide shared the story of the Holy Family’s trip, and then in a tone that can only be described as reverence, he told us he believed they had actually been in that place. We don’t know, of course, but it’s likely Joseph might have moved around while they lived there to find work. Hippolytus of Rome, an ancient historian, says Joseph, Mary and Jesus spent three and a half years in Egypt before they came back to Israel. Again, we don’t know, but here’s the point of the whole story: Joseph was faithful. Without questioning the angel or the dream, he uprooted his family, his life, and his livelihood for the sake of the baby. He became a refugee, like many in our world today, because of his faith and his determination to do what God desired. And so early in his life, Jesus became a refugee. He was just like the over 65 million people who, today, are displaced from their homes because of religion, famine, war or other threats. They didn’t want to leave their home, but many of them would testify they would do whatever it took to save their families. In many ways, they’re no different than you and me, or Joseph. They’re just people without a home, people who have been threatened because of what they believe or where they live. They need our prayers, our compassion, our understanding. You know, I can’t help but wonder if Jesus might have somehow been reflecting on this experience of being a refugee when he told his followers that when they feed the hungry, take care of the sick and give the thirsty something to drink they were doing the same thing to him (cf. Matthew 25:31-46). In the face of displaced peoples, we can see the face of the child Jesus, made a refugee by an angry king and because of a father’s love and faithfulness. So let me ask: what would you be willing to sacrifice in order to be faithful to God?

There’s a third story that we’re not going to be able to spend a lot of time with this morning, and that’s when Jesus gets lost in Jerusalem. By this time, he’s twelve, and he’s making his first trip to the Passover celebration with his family. Luke tells us about it; it’s really the only glimpse we have of Jesus’ childhood in the Gospels. Many scholars think Mary was one of Luke’s sources, and I can sort of picture Mary, older now, telling Luke, “You want a story? I’ve got a story. Let me tell you about the time Joseph lost the boy in Jerusalem!” But there is one poignant moment in the story, which you can read at the end of Luke 2, when Mary and Joseph come back to the city and find Jesus in the Temple. He’s been there at least three days, and when they find him among the teachers, asking them questions, Mary says to Jesus, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” And Jesus says this: “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (2:48-49). Now, as a father myself, I can’t help but imagine that a pang of hurt went right through Joseph’s heart at that moment. It’s like when a child shouts at you for the first time that they don’t want anything to do with you; it had to have hurt, at least a little. Jesus’ comment about his Father’s house was a reminder that Joseph wasn’t his father and an affirmation that, at least by the age of twelve, Jesus knew it. Jesus knew who his true Father was. Yet Joseph, faithful Joseph, sacrificed his pride and his hurt so that Jesus could be who he knew he was. In faithfulness to God, Joseph took Jesus home to Nazareth, where (we are told) Jesus was obedient to his earthly parents (2:51).

So, after those three stories, we don’t hear anything else about Joseph in the Gospels. We don’t know how or when he died, but it must have been sometime between that incident when Jesus was twelve and before he was thirty when he began his public ministry. Some other (non-canonical) gospels written later speculate about Joseph’s death, but we simply don’t know what happened. What we can say, based on what we do know of his life, is that there is no reason to suspect that Joseph would have been in his death anything other than he had been in his life. He was faithful, to the end. This one who had willingly taken on himself the incredible task of raising the son of God, who had accepted Mary’s shame and disgrace for a child conceived out of wedlock, who had done whatever it took to provide for his family—this man gave up so much more than we can imagine so that he could live a faithful life.

Which brings us back to the question I asked earlier. As we approach a new year, with all of its hope and promise beckoning, what are you willing to give up in order to remain or become more faithful to the God who has given his very self for you? As we prepare to renew our covenant with God for 2018, how are you living more faithfully in relationship with Jesus now than you were a year ago? And, perhaps more importantly, what will you do now so that you can live more faithfully in relationship with Jesus this time next year than you are now? The Christian faith is a journey; Joseph’s story reminds us of that in many ways. We’re not meant to stay the same. It’s not a matter of, “I am saved, and that’s all I need to get into heaven.” Christ calls us to grow and become more like him; that’s his desire for us. Paul put it this way: “Those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). We should look more like Jesus every year, every month, every week, every day, than we did the year, month, week or day before. We’re called to be faithful.

In the early Methodist movement, to help followers of Jesus maintain and deepen their faithfulness to Christ, John Wesley believed that it was important to periodically renew our covenant with Christ. It’s a practice that certainly has Biblical precedent. Every time the ancient Hebrews began a new era, they would renew their covenant with God. In fact, just before they entered the Promised Land, Joshua led them in such a covenant renewal, a practice that, in that time, involved every male adult being circumcised (Joshua 5:2-12). That’s a crazy battle strategy; just days before you invade and attempt to conquer a land, you put your whole fighting force out of commission for several days! And yet, the faithfulness of their relationship with God, Joshua knew, would determine everything else. Thankfully, for those of us in Christ, circumcision is no longer required!

But renewing our covenant is still a vital thing for us to do. In 1755, John Wesley led the early Methodists in the first real celebration of a Covenant Service. Over the years, he repeated the service often and in different locations, reporting in his journal each time that people were “comforted” and that many “mourned before God.” On another occasion, he said the Covenant Service was the source of some of the greatest blessings among the people called Methodist. Eventually, especially in London, it became the custom to hold the Covenant Service on New Year’s Day; today, we typically do it on the Sunday closest to New Year’s Day—and we can’t get much closer to that day than today.

So, in just a few moments, I’m going to set before you the Biblical conditions of the covenant and then ask you to join together in praying through this covenant. There is nothing magical in these words that make us faithful people; rather, these words are a reminder of who we are and whose we are. I need that reminder more than once a year, so I often pray this prayer or something similar to it in the morning. But I do need it at least once a year. As we stand on the cusp of a brand new slate of 365 days, it is time to renew our covenant and reaffirm our commitment to be, like Joseph, men and women who are faithful.